more than harlequins historical fiction for women
Explore captivating historical fiction books for women beyond Harlequins! Discover rich stories of romance, adventure, and drama in our curated list of must-read novels.
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Nowhere Else on Earth
by Josephine Humphreys
Now in paperback, the love of a young girl for a heroic outlaw is rendered in this richly textured story of a war-torn community and …
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Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier
Inman, an injured and disillusioned Confederate soldier, embarks on a harrowing journey home to his sweetheart, Ada, who herself is struggling to run the farm …
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Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
The bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments reveals the life of one of the most notorious women of the nineteenth century in …
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The Dress Lodger
by Sheri Holman
In a novel set in London during the Industrial Revolution, a prostitute borrows a blue dress to attract a higher class of client and is …
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The Passion of Artemisia
by Susan Vreeland
"Susan Vreeland set a high standard with Girl in Hyacinth Blue.... The Passion of Artemisia is even better.... Vreeland's unsentimental prose turns the factual Artemisia …
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Herland, The Yellow Wall-paper, and Selected Writings
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) penned this sardonic remark in her autobiography, encapsulating a lifetime of frustration with the gender-based double standard that prevailed in turn-of-the-century …
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Portrait in Sepia
by Isabel Allende
Lacking all memory of the first five years of her life because of a brutal trauma, Aurora del Valle is raised by her regal grandmother …
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The Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits
by Emma Donoghue
Following the triumphant publication of "Slammerkin" this rollicking collection of short stories depicts the strangely exhilarating sideshows of humanity lost to traditional history.
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Gertrude and Claudius
by John Updike
Gertrude and Claudius are the “villains” of Hamlet: he the killer of Hamlet’s father and usurper of the Danish throne; she his lusty consort, who …
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Slammerkin
by Emma Donoghue
Mary Saunders' lust for linen, lace and a shiny red ribbon leads her to a life of prostitution.
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Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
"When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine …
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The Book of Ruth
by Jane Hamilton
Winner of the 1989 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel, this exquisite book confronts real-life issues of alienation and violence from which the author …
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Gap Creek
by Robert Morgan
A New York Times Bestseller & Oprah's Book Club Pick Young Julie Harmon works “hard as a man,” they say, so hard that at times …
